IZA DP No. 1808
The Cycle of Violence? An Empirical Analysis of Fatalities in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
David A. Jaeger M. Daniele Paserman
DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES DISCUSSION PAPER October 2005
Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit Institute for the Study of Labor
The Cycle of Violence? An Empirical Analysis of Fatalities in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
David A. Jaeger College of William and Mary and IZA Bonn
M. Daniele Paserman Hebrew University, CEPR and IZA Bonn
Discussion Paper No. 1808 October 2005
IZA
P.O. Box 7240 53072 Bonn Germany
Phone: +49-228-3894-0 Fax: +49-228-3894-180 Email: [email protected]
Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of the institute. Research disseminated by IZA may include views on policy, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions.
The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit company supported by Deutsche Post World Net. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its research networks, research support, and visitors and doctoral programs. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public.
IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. IZA Discussion Paper No. 1808 October 2005
ABSTRACT
The Cycle of Violence? An Empirical Analysis of Fatalities in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict*
This paper studies the dynamics of violence in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict since the outbreak of the Second (or “Al-Aqsa”) Intifada in September 2000, during which more than 3,300 Palestinians and more than 1,000 Israelis have been killed. The conflict has followed an uneven pattern, with periods of high levels of violence and periods of relative calm. Using data on the number of deaths occurring each day between September 2000 and January 2005, we estimate reaction functions for both Israelis and Palestinians and find evidence of unidirectional Granger causality from Palestinian violence to Israeli violence, but not vice versa. This finding is consistent whether we look only at the incidence of fatalities or whether we look at the level of fatalities, and is robust to the specification of the lag structure and the level of time aggregation. We find little evidence that violence on either side has a direct deterrent or incapacitation effect. We do find, however, that successful assassination attempts do reduce the number of subsequent Israeli fatalities. We conclude that, despite the popular perception that Palestinians and Israelis are engaged in “tit-for-tat” violence, there is no evidence to support that notion.
JEL Classification: C32, D71, D74, H56
Keywords: Intifada, terrorism, Granger causality
Corresponding author:
David A. Jaeger Department of Economics College of William and Mary Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795 USA E-mail: [email protected]
* We thank Tatiana Slobodnitsky, Tamar Roth, Yaron Aronshtam, Eran Ben-Ari, and Lisa Andruyszyn for outstanding research assistance, Suhair Abdi and Yael Handelsman of B’Tselem for discussions about data as well as providing data on suicide bombings, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Netzach Mashiach for providing us the data on the separation barrier, and Noam Zussman for helpful comments and for providing us the data on assassination attempts. We also thank Joshua Angrist, Daniel Hamermesh, Stephen Cecchetti, Esteban Klor and seminar participants at IZA, CERGE-EI, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, RWI-Essen, the Tinbergen Institute, Hebrew University, the ENS program at the Samuel Neaman Institute, Tel-Aviv University, the NBER Summer Institute, and the University of Wisconsin for comments on preliminary results. David Jaeger acknowledges financial support from the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung and IZA. Daniele Paserman acknowledges financial support from the Samuel Neaman Institute at the Technion. C8 0 6; , 9 2; 1; 1,6; N ;8 5 4 6; 2 2K 6, 4 9 2N4 9;F 9 00 24E B2 2 6 ;8
D 9 2 F , ['4K' 6 ]F 2; N F 8 6 94 0 ;8 4 6 N 0 , ;8 2 F ?? 5 4 6; 2 26 2 0 ,
;8 2 F??? 6, 4 6 6 29 ;6 1; , B 2 D 7; 0 , ???( C8 6 ,17; 2 N 4 29 8 6 2